This invention relates to shoes and stockings provided with separate toe compartments.
Footwear of this type is available now. It prevents mutual separation of the toes, to avoid pressing the toes together. This construction of footwear is desirable for avoiding harm to the bone structure of the foot. It also provides most effective engagement of the ground, by the feet. However the advantages of this type of footwear have not been fully obtained, thus far. A number of drawbacks have been encountered.
For example in such a shoe, as made until now, difficulties were encountered as the tip or fore-part of the upper is made of a single piece of material, having toe elements shaped to provide the toe compartments and having edges attached to the corresponding elements. As a result, these elements reenforce one another, and the toe compartments therefore have considerable stiffness. When the user of such a shoe or stocking stands or walks on irregular ground his toes are not as fully independent of one another, and not as firmly in contact with the ground, as they should be. The sole portions tend to be held on a single level.
It is desirable to provide more fully separated and independent sole portions, one for each toe compartment. Only thereby can the wearer's toes adjust themselves to the ground in truly separate and independent fashion. This was impossible thus far, even with footwear having separate toe compartments. Only a small part of the desirable individual adaptation of the toes to the ground was actually obtained. In some instances the wearer was not even able to stand firmly on the ground.
Moreover the conventional shoe tips with separate toe compartments have toe-separating walls which are made of relatively still and rigid material. Due to such construction the sides of each toe compartment rub against the delicate skin of the toe. This condition tends to produce blisters.
Also, as the conventional toe compartments are relatively stiff and rigid, it is inconvenient and difficult to insert the toes into these respective compartments. Little or no use can be made of the fingers, for this purpose, because of the stiffness and rigidity of the compartments.